Green Benefits of a High Speed Rail in the USA
During that declaration Obama said :«With high-speed rail system, we're going to be able to pull people off the road, lowering our dependence on foreign oil, lowering the bill for our gas in our gas tanks. […]We're also going to deal with the suffocation that's taking place in our major metropolitan areas as a consequence of that congestion. And we're going to significantly lessen the damage to our planet. This is a giant environmental down payment.»
According to one recent study, achievement of pending plans for the federally designated HSR corridors could result in an annual decrease of 6 billion pounds of CO2, which is enormous.
What Obama had to say to get the spirits enchanted over that idea:
«Imagine boarding a train in the center of a city. No racing to an airport and across a terminal, no delays, no sitting on the tarmac, no lost luggage, no taking off your shoes. (Laughter.) Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination. Imagine what a great project that would be to rebuild America.»
The President then compared the USA to countries like France, Spain, China and Japan who have been using these transportation infrastructures for many years now. « So it's being done; it's just not being done here.», he reminded the audience.
He also added that building a new system of high-speed rail in America will be faster, cheaper and easier than building more freeways or adding to an already overburdened aviation system, so in the end everybody will benefit from it.
While searching for subject related to this new possible high speed rail, I found a list of Obama’s 7 Greenest Ideas So Far on Treehugger.com.
Here’s a summary of this interesting list:
1-Funding Renewable Energy
2-Getting a Carbon Cap off the Ground
3-Joining the International Dialogue on Global Warming
4-Building a High Speed Rail Corridor
5-Setting a National Vehicle Emissions Standard
6-Asking the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate CO2 emissions
7-Pushing the Smart Grid
For more details concerning that list, visit www.treehugger.com.
Source:Whitehouse.gov.
Posted by on 04/27 at 02:29 PM